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87th Texas Legislature

StassneyHorn

By StassneyHorn
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former alkie
former alkie

SB 7 is all common sense stuff. Those bitching and complaining about the voting rules, are just people looking for reasons to bitch and complain. These are all rules, that should have been i

Pescado_Rojo
Pescado_Rojo

Texas Ds doing more to halt republican fuckery from a minority position than the National Ds can get done with a majority. 

Chooky
Chooky

It's a process. Before you can fix the power grid you have to make sure kids can't learn about the Lipan Apache tribe or Frederick Douglass. And you can't winterize power facilities without reducing t

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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

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Posted (edited)

Is that from his high school yearbook?  He looks older there than he does now.  

I think he misread the superlative, "Most likely to take hold of the gavel."  as "Most likely to take the whole gavel"  NTTAWWT

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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

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This poor guy has had it rough for too long, I say Briscoe's yearbook photo replaces this dude:

https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/812282-bad-luck-brian

I don't know how to post words over Cain's photo, but it would be something like:

"Peter Jackson casting Hobbit prequel about Frodo's childhood"

"Casting Director says you're somehow still too small and creepy."  

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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

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I picture Briscoe and the Lt. Gov. sitting at the airport right now ready to go play bounty hunter in D.C. on Abbott's orders to go round up Democrats in another jurisdiction.  Cain there in the airport lounge in his little onesie with his long guns checked at the gate, and Dan Patrick in his Lane Bryant pants suit and boots/hat ready to rumble.  Like a little fun show on AMC3, "Briscoe & Dan: Texas Lawmen"  

This week, they go hunting for Texans in the Swamp!  Tune in at 9! 

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MonkeyDoughnut

MonkeyDoughnut 10762

Posted
Posted
15 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

betting everyone on that plane has been vaccinated, so The Masked Investor can go fuck him/herself. I hate gotcha politics and one side plays it pretty exclusively

So I gotta follow the rules but they don't? Fuck that, they're the ones making the damn rules.

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C-Man

C-Man 27685

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Lobo said:

I picture Briscoe and the Lt. Gov. sitting at the airport right now ready to go play bounty hunter in D.C. on Abbott's orders to go round up Democrats in another jurisdiction.  Cain there in the airport lounge in his little onesie with his long guns checked at the gate, and Dan Patrick in his Lane Bryant pants suit and boots/hat ready to rumble.  Like a little fun show on AMC3, "Briscoe & Dan: Texas Lawmen"  

This week, they go hunting for Texans in the Swamp!  Tune in at 9! 

image.png.4f30a0116c95bfab81313fcee39341bc.png

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Guest Lobo

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30 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

But also, which one brought the case of Miller Light with them for the plane?

That would be Representative, Wade Boggs.  And those are just for him.  

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pearlandhorn

pearlandhorn 3343

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I'd like someone to clarify this for me.  Heard about it on the news and don't have a dog in the fight.  I've heard:

Republicans are wanting to essentially repeal the extended measures Texas instituted last year during corona regarding voting.  Dems don't want to so they flee the state (which happened in 2003?) and go to DC until the special session ends.  Dems then come back to Texas and Wheels will call another special session to vote for it and we're essentially stuck in a stalemate right?

I've heard included in this bill is ending drive by voting, having to request an absentee/vote by mail ballet, some ID for mail in ballets, and rolling back extended early voting times to pre-pandemic levels.  Weren't most of these instituted due to corona?  That the meat of it?

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Longhorn_Fan68

Longhorn_Fan68 34079

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, pearlandhorn said:

I'd like someone to clarify this for me.  Heard about it on the news and don't have a dog in the fight.  I've heard:

Republicans are wanting to essentially repeal the extended measures Texas instituted last year during corona regarding voting.  Dems don't want to so they flee the state (which happened in 2003?) and go to DC until the special session ends.  Dems then come back to Texas and Wheels will call another special session to vote for it and we're essentially stuck in a stalemate right?

I've heard included in this bill is ending drive by voting, having to request an absentee/vote by mail ballet, some ID for mail in ballets, and rolling back extended early voting times to pre-pandemic levels.  Weren't most of these instituted due to corona?  That the meat of it?

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Js1

Js1 86943

Posted
Posted
7 minutes ago, pearlandhorn said:

I'd like someone to clarify this for me.  Heard about it on the news and don't have a dog in the fight.  I've heard:

Republicans are wanting to essentially repeal the extended measures Texas instituted last year during corona regarding voting.  Dems don't want to so they flee the state (which happened in 2003?) and go to DC until the special session ends.  Dems then come back to Texas and Wheels will call another special session to vote for it and we're essentially stuck in a stalemate right?

I've heard included in this bill is ending drive by voting, having to request an absentee/vote by mail ballet, some ID for mail in ballets, and rolling back extended early voting times to pre-pandemic levels.  Weren't most of these instituted due to corona?  That the meat of it?

The bill is meant to fix a problem ("fraud") that doesn't and hasn't existed in a long time.  And if it has, it's tens of ballots every 4 years.

The 2020 election in Texas was the most smooth and secure election ever conducted, as stated by Texas SOS Ruth Hughs, who then had her interim appointment declined by Texas Senate Republicans for full confirmation. 

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GRHorn

GRHorn 105

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

betting everyone on that plane has been vaccinated, so The Masked Investor can go fuck him/herself. I hate gotcha politics and one side plays it pretty exclusively

Yes it is only the other side! Not yours! What an intelligent take. 
 

anyway 

 

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Longhorn_Fan68

Longhorn_Fan68 34079

Posted
Posted (edited)
4 minutes ago, GRHorn said:

Yes it is only the other side! Not yours! What an intelligent take. 
 

anyway 

 

it's really not possible for you to suck any more than you do. did you and I really graduate from the same university?

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MonkeyDoughnut

MonkeyDoughnut 10762

Posted
Posted
5 minutes ago, pearlandhorn said:

I'd like someone to clarify this for me.  Heard about it on the news and don't have a dog in the fight.  I've heard:

Republicans are wanting to essentially repeal the extended measures Texas instituted last year during corona regarding voting.  Dems don't want to so they flee the state (which happened in 2003?) and go to DC until the special session ends.  Dems then come back to Texas and Wheels will call another special session to vote for it and we're essentially stuck in a stalemate right?

I've heard included in this bill is ending drive by voting, having to request an absentee/vote by mail ballet, some ID for mail in ballets, and rolling back extended early voting times to pre-pandemic levels.  Weren't most of these instituted due to corona?  That the meat of it?

I make it easier on you - one side sucks, the other side sucks more and both sides are ok wasting our money and claiming to do so to protect our interests.

 

 

 

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bolverk

bolverk 30235

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

I wish,  but Biden executive order in January requires them on ALL flights regardless of charter, private or commercial.

Unless I'm somehow missing something, it doesn't include charter flights.

Quote

 

Sec. 2.  Immediate Action to Require Mask-Wearing on Certain Domestic Modes of Transportation.

(a)  Mask Requirement.  The Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Secretary of Transportation (including through the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)), the Secretary of Homeland Security (including through the Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Commandant of the United States Coast Guard), and the heads of any other executive departments and agencies (agencies) that have relevant regulatory authority (heads of agencies) shall immediately take action, to the extent appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to require masks to be worn in compliance with CDC guidelines in or on: 

(i)    airports; 

(ii)   commercial aircraft; 

(iii)  trains; 

(iv)   public maritime vessels, including ferries; 

(v)    intercity bus services; and

(vi)   all forms of public transportation as defined in section 5302 of title 49, United States Code.

 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/21/executive-order-promoting-covid-19-safety-in-domestic-and-international-travel/

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bolverk

bolverk 30235

Posted
Posted
32 minutes ago, pearlandhorn said:

I'd like someone to clarify this for me.  Heard about it on the news and don't have a dog in the fight.  I've heard:

Republicans are wanting to essentially repeal the extended measures Texas instituted last year during corona regarding voting.  Dems don't want to so they flee the state (which happened in 2003?) and go to DC until the special session ends.  Dems then come back to Texas and Wheels will call another special session to vote for it and we're essentially stuck in a stalemate right?

I've heard included in this bill is ending drive by voting, having to request an absentee/vote by mail ballet, some ID for mail in ballets, and rolling back extended early voting times to pre-pandemic levels.  Weren't most of these instituted due to corona?  That the meat of it?

Essentially, that's correct...as advertised. But in the spring session they tried to sneak in a bunch of other shit that they got called out on at the last minute.

One of the biggest worries however is this will enable voter intimidation and interference by partisan poll-watchers:

Quote

 

For voting rights groups and Democrats, some of the most worrying provisions in the Texas bills are ones that would greatly expand the authority and autonomy of partisan poll watchers. Originally meant to serve as an outside check on the electoral process for candidates and political parties, poll watchers have become increasingly aggressive in some states, including Texas.

That has raised fears that poll watchers, as they have repeatedly in American elections over the years, will increasingly be used to intimidate voters and election workers, often in Democratic-leaning communities of color. During the 2020 election, President Donald J. Trump’s campaign promoted its “army” of poll watchers as he implored supporters to venture into heavily Black and Latino cities and hunt for voter fraud.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/13/us/politics/texas-voting-rights-democrats.html

 

Here's a more in-depth article on it:

 

 

Spoiler

 

G.O.P. Seeks to Empower Poll Watchers, Raising Intimidation Worries

Republicans in several states are pushing bills to give poll watchers more autonomy. Alarmed election officials and voting rights activists say it’s a new attempt to target voters of color.

May 1, 2021
HOUSTON — The red dot of a laser pointer circled downtown Houston on a map during a virtual training of poll watchers by the Harris County Republican Party. It highlighted densely populated, largely Black, Latino and Asian neighborhoods.

“This is where the fraud is occurring,” a county Republican official said falsely in a leaked video of the training, which was held in March. A precinct chair in the northeastern, largely white suburbs of Houston, he said he was trying to recruit people from his area “to have the confidence and courage” to act as poll watchers in the circled areas in upcoming elections.

A question at the bottom corner of the slide indicated just how many poll watchers the party wanted to mobilize: “Can we build a 10K Election Integrity Brigade?”

As Republican lawmakers in major battleground states seek to make voting harder and more confusing through a web of new election laws, they are simultaneously making a concerted legislative push to grant more autonomy and access to partisan poll watchers — citizens trained by a campaign or a party and authorized by local election officials to observe the electoral process.

This effort has alarmed election officials and voting rights activists alike: There is a long history of poll watchers being used to intimidate voters and harass election workers, often in ways that target Democratic-leaning communities of color and stoke fears that have the overall effect of voter suppression. During the 2020 election, President Donald J. Trump’s campaign repeatedly promoted its “army” of poll watchers as he publicly implored supporters to venture into heavily Black and Latino cities and hunt for voter fraud.

Republicans have offered little evidence to justify a need for poll watchers to have expanded access and autonomy. As they have done for other election changes — including reduced early voting, stricter absentee ballot requirements and limits on drop boxes — they have grounded their reasoning in arguments that their voters want more secure elections. That desire was born in large part out of Mr. Trump’s repeated lies about last year’s presidential contest, which included complaints about insufficient poll watcher access.

Now, with disputes over the rules governing voting now at a fever pitch, the rush to empower poll watchers threatens to inject further tension into elections.

Both partisan and nonpartisan poll watching have been a key component of American elections for years, and Republicans and Democrats alike have routinely sent trained observers to the polls to monitor the process and report back on any worries. In recent decades, laws have often helped keep aggressive behavior at bay, preventing poll watchers from getting too close to voters or election officials, and maintaining a relatively low threshold for expelling anyone who misbehaves.

But now Republican state lawmakers in 20 states have introduced at least 40 bills that would expand the powers of poll watchers, and 12 of those bills in six states are currently progressing through legislatures, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

In Texas, the Republican-controlled Legislature is advancing legislation that would allow them to photograph and video-record voters receiving assistance, as well as make it extremely difficult for election officials to order the removal of poll watchers.

The video-recording measure has particularly alarmed voting rights groups, which argue that it could result in the unwanted identification of a voter in a video posted on social media, or allow isolated incidents to be used by partisan news outlets to craft a widespread narrative.

“If you have a situation, for example, where people who are poll workers do not have the ability to throw out anybody at the polls who is being disruptive or anyone at the polls who is intimidating voters, that’s essentially authorizing voter intimidation,” said Jon Greenbaum, chief counsel for the nonpartisan Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Republicans have been increasingly open in recent years about their intent to line up legions of supporters to monitor the polls. Following the lead of Mr. Trump, they have often framed the observational role in militaristic tones, amplifying their arguments of its necessity with false claims of widespread fraud. Just three years ago, the courts lifted a consent decree that for more than three decades had barred the Republican National Committee from taking an active role in poll watching; in 2020, the committee jumped back into the practice.

In Florida, Republicans in the State Legislature passed a new election bill on Thursday that includes a provision allowing one partisan poll watcher per candidate on the ballot during the inspection of votes. The measure carries the potential to significantly overcrowd election officials. The bill also does not stipulate any distance that poll watchers must keep from election workers.

In Michigan, a G.O.P. bill would allow challengers to sit close enough to read poll books, tabulators and other election records, and would let them challenge a voter’s eligibility if they had “a good reason.”

The Republican drive to empower poll watchers adds to the mounting evidence that much of the party continues to view the 2020 election through the same lens as Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly argued that his losses in key states must have been because of fraud.

“It seems like the No. 1 goal of these laws is to perpetuate the Big Lie,” said Dale Ho, the director of the Voting Rights Project at the A.C.L.U. “So when you get these unfounded charges that there was fraud or cheating in the election and people say, ‘Well, that’s not detected,’ the purveyors of these lies say, ‘That’s because we weren’t able to observe.’”

After the election last year, complaints that poll watchers had not been given enough access, or that their accusations of improperly cast ballots had been ignored, fueled numerous lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign and its Republican allies, nearly all of which failed.

In Texas, the leaked video of the Harris County Republican Party’s training, which was published by the voting rights group Common Cause, recalled a similar episode from the 2010 midterm elections.

That year, a Tea Party-affiliated group in Houston known as the King Street Patriots sent poll watchers to downtown polling locations. The flood of the mostly white observers into Black neighborhoods caused friction, and resurfaced not-too-distant memories when racial intimidation at the polls was commonplace in the South.

The King Street Patriots would eventually evolve into True the Vote, one of the major national organizations now seeking more voting restrictions. Last year, True the Vote joined several lawsuits alleging fraud in the election (all failed) and led countrywide drives to try to recruit more poll watchers.

Access for poll watchers is considered sacred by Texas Republicans; in the Legislature, they cited the difficulty in finding observers for drive-through voting and 24-hour voting as one of their reasons for proposing to ban such balloting methods.

“Both parties want to have poll watchers, need to have poll watchers present,” State Senator Bryan Hughes, a Republican who sponsored the chamber’s version of the bill, said in an interview last month. “That protects everyone.”

While the antagonistic language from the Trump campaign about its poll watchers was already a flash point in November, Democrats and voting rights groups are worried that relaxed rules will lead to more reports of aggressive behavior.

In 2020, there were at least 44 reports of inappropriate behavior by poll watchers in Harris County, according to county records obtained by The New York Times.

At one polling site on the outskirts of Houston, Cindy Wilson, the nonpartisan election official in charge, reported two aggressive poll watchers who she said had bothered voters and repeatedly challenged the staff.

“Two Poll watchers stood close to the black voters (less than 3 feet away) and engaged in what I describe as intimidating behavior,” Ms. Wilson wrote in an email to the Harris County clerk that was obtained by The Times through an open records request.

Ms. Wilson said she was not sure which campaign or party the observers were representing.

Of course, plenty of interactions with poll workers went smoothly. Merrilee C. Peterson, a poll watcher for a local Republican candidate, worked at a different site, the NRG Arena, and reported no tensions of note.

“We still had some of the problems of not thinking we were allowed to get close enough to see,” she said. “But once the little kinks were worked out, quite frankly we worked very well with the poll workers.”

In Florida, crowding was the chief concern of election officials.

Testifying before state senators, Mark Earley, the vice president of the Florida Supervisors of Elections, said that “as an association, we are very concerned” about the number of poll watchers who would now be allowed to observe the process of duplicating a voter’s damaged or erroneously marked ballot. He said it presented “very grave security risks.”

Mr. Earley was backed by at least one Republican, State Senator Jeff Brandes, who found the provision for poll watchers unnecessary and dangerous.

“I don’t think we should have to install risers in the supervisor of elections offices or bars by which they can hang upside down in order to ensure that there is a transparent process,” Mr. Brandes said.

But perhaps no other state had a conflict involving poll watchers erupt onto cable news as Michigan did. On Election Day and the day after in November, Republican poll watchers grew increasingly obstructive at the TCF Center in Detroit, where absentee ballots were counted as it became clear that Mr. Trump was losing in the state.

It began with a huddle of Republican observers around midday on Nov. 4, according to affidavits from Democratic poll watchers, nonpartisan observers and election officials.

Soon after, the Republicans “began to fan out around the room,” wrote Dan McKernan, an election worker.

Then they ramped up their objections, accusing workers of entering incorrect birth years or backdating ballots. In some cases, the poll watchers lodged blanket claims of wrongdoing.

“The behavior in the room changed dramatically in the afternoon: The rage in the room from Republican challengers was nothing like I had ever experienced in my life,” wrote Anjanette Davenport Hatter, another election worker.

Mr. McKernan wrote: “Republicans were challenging everything at the two tables I could see. When the ballot envelope was opened, they would say they couldn’t see it clearly. When the next envelope was opened, they made the same complaint. They were objecting to every single step down the line for no good reason.”

The chaos provided some of the basis for Michigan officials to debate whether to certify the results, but a state board did so that month.

Now, the Republican-controlled Legislature in Michigan is proposing to bar nonpartisan observers from acting as poll watchers, allowing only partisan challengers to do so.

While widespread reports of intimidation never materialized last year, voting rights groups say the atmosphere after the election represents a dangerous shift in American elections.

“It really hasn’t been like this for decades, generally speaking, even though there’s a long and storied history of it,” said Michael Waldman, a legal expert at the Brennan Center. Aggressive partisan poll watchers, he said, were “a longstanding barrier to voting in the United States, and it was also largely solved. And this risks bringing it back.”

 

Another article:

Spoiler

 

Trump Renews Fears of Voter Intimidation as G.O.P. Poll Watchers Mobilize

Republicans are putting together what they call an army of Trump supporters to monitor election procedures.

Published Sept. 30, 2020
Updated Nov. 3, 2020
The group of Trump campaign officials came carrying cellphone cameras and a determination to help the president’s re-election efforts in Philadelphia. But they were asked to leave the city’s newly opened satellite election offices on Tuesday after being told local election laws did not permit them to monitor voters coming to request and complete absentee ballots.

On social media and right-wing news sites and in the presidential debate on Tuesday night, President Trump and his campaign quickly suggested nefarious intent in the actions of local election officials, with the president claiming during the debate that “bad things happen in Philadelphia” and urging his supporters everywhere to “go into the polls and watch very carefully.”

The baseless descriptions of the voting process in Philadelphia were the latest broad-brush attempt by the Trump campaign to undermine confidence in this year’s election, a message delivered with an ominous edge at the debate when he advised an extremist group, the Proud Boys, to “stand back and stand by” in his remarks about the election.

The calls for his followers to monitor voting activity are clear. What’s less apparent is how the Trump campaign wants this to play out.

Mr. Trump and his campaign often seem to be working on two tracks, one seemingly an amped-up version of mostly familiar election procedures like poll watching, the other something of a more perilous nature for a democracy.

In the first, Justin Clark, a lawyer for the Trump campaign, told a conservative group this year of plans to “leverage about 50,000 volunteers all the way through, from early vote through Election Day, to be able to watch the polls.” The head of the party in Philadelphia said Wednesday that there would be multiple poll watchers at every site in the city, which would mean at least 1,600 Republican watchers in Philadelphia alone.

Thea McDonald, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, said the operation was needed because “Democrats have proven their lack of trustworthiness time and again this election cycle.” She added, “President Trump’s volunteer poll watchers will be trained to ensure all rules are applied equally, all valid ballots are counted, and all Democrat rule-breaking is called out.”

In recent weeks, the Trump campaign has distributed carefully lawyered training videos to prospective poll watchers around the country describing what they can and can’t do while monitoring the voting process, imploring them to be courteous to “even our Democrat friends.” The poll watchers will challenge ballots and the eligibility of voters, but they are not supposed to interact with voters themselves.

Voting rights groups fear that effort could veer toward voter intimidation. But the question is how far Mr. Trump’s supporters will take the exhortations to protect a vote the president has relentlessly, and baselessly, described as being at risk of widespread fraud.

The Republican National Committee has been allowed to participate in poll watching only because the courts in 2018 lifted a consent decree that had barred them from doing so for three and a half decades, after the party undertook an operation to intimidate New Jersey voters in 1981.

Now, poll watchers are being instructed in specific detail. In Michigan, for instance, they are being told to record when any paper jams occur, while those in Arizona are being given a detailed breakdown of the state’s voter identification requirements.

But while the official poll watchers are being schooled in legal procedures, Mr. Trump and some of his closest surrogates, including his longtime confidant Roger J. Stone Jr. and his son Donald Trump Jr., have recently floated conspiracy theories that also sound like calls to arms.

During a recent appearance on “The Alex Jones Show,” a far-right radio program that peddles conspiracy theories, Mr. Stone said that ballots in Nevada should be seized by federal marshals, claiming that “they are already corrupted” and that Mr. Trump should consider nationalizing the state police. Mr. Stone, a felon whose sentence was commuted this year by the president, has ties to the Proud Boys.

In a video imploring Trump supporters to join a poll-watching brigade called “Army for Trump,” Donald Trump Jr. made similarly evidence-free claims of fraud.

“The radical left are laying the groundwork to steal this election from my father, President Donald Trump,” the younger Mr. Trump says on the video, posted on Twitter.

Even as Mr. Trump failed to condemn violent white supremacists during the debate, his own Homeland Security analysts asserted in a threat assessment that such extremists represent the “most persistent and lethal threat in the homeland through 2021,” according to a September draft of the assessment obtained by The New York Times.

The assessment said that “open-air, publicly accessible parts of physical election infrastructure,” including polling places and voter registration events, could be “flash points for potential violence.”

Many have been aghast at the president’s tactics. Nevada’s attorney general, Aaron D. Ford, a Democrat, tweeted Tuesday that telling supporters to “go into the polls and watch very carefully” amounted to intimidation. “FYI — voter intimidation is illegal in Nevada,” he wrote. “Believe me when I say it: You do it, and you will be prosecuted.”

Lauren Groh-Wargo, the chief executive of Fair Fight Action, a voting rights group, said Mr. Trump and Republicans “continue to engage in these voter suppression efforts because they know if we have a free and fair election they will lose.”

And Benjamin L. Ginsberg, a retired elections lawyer for Republicans, said Mr. Trump’s debate comments went “several degrees farther than his campaign and the R.N.C. have gone in describing their Election Day operations plans,” adding that the remarks placed “his campaign’s and the R.N.C.’s lawyers in the position of having to answer how they plan to instruct their massive 50,000-person army of poll watchers to act on Election Day.”

While Mr. Trump and his allies give license to election discord, official party poll watchers are required to view training videos that define their legal parameters, which state election laws tightly limit.

Both parties recruit volunteer poll watchers, a process Republicans previously led at the state level amid the consent decree. In a new video tailored for Pennsylvania, prospective poll watchers are told they must wear identification and remain outside an enclosed space designated for voting. Questions must be directed to a party hotline or elections personnel, not voters.

But such legal niceties are already falling away as early voting begins. Mr. Trump and members of his family tweeted allegations against Philadelphia, and right-wing news outlets amplified the message of poll watchers being “barred” from early voting.

“As you know today, there was a big problem,” Mr. Trump said during Tuesday’s debate. “In Philadelphia, they went in to watch, they were called poll watchers, a very safe, very nice thing. They were thrown out, they weren’t allowed to watch. You know why? Because bad things happen in Philadelphia, bad things.”

But city officials said they were enforcing the law and would continue to do so.

“We have law enforcement officers, we have protocols in place to make sure all the voters are safe,” said Omar Sabir, a Democratic city commissioner in Philadelphia. “Don’t let anything or anyone intimidate you from exercising your right to vote.”

Additionally, Mr. Sabir noted, the seven locations in Philadelphia were satellite election offices where voters could request, fill out and submit absentee ballots; they were not official polling locations and therefore not open to poll watchers.

Those viewed as violating the rules and decorum that poll watchers must follow will be removed, said Nick Custodio, a deputy commissioner in Philadelphia.

“Watchers on Election Day are there to observe, and a lot of them will check tally sheets or which voters have shown up to vote so far, but they can’t be intimidating people,” Mr. Custodio said.

Martina White, chair of the Philadelphia County Republicans, said names were still being gathered to submit for certification amid a huge poll-watching effort. She disagreed with barring poll watchers from satellite election offices, saying there should be “oversight of what transpires in there, just like a poll watcher would on Election Day, as people are casting votes.”

The activity in Philadelphia came 10 days after Trump supporters chanting “four more years” disrupted early voting in Fairfax, Va., at one point forming a line that voters had to walk around outside the site.

The Republican establishment has ample reason to want to avoid accusations of voter intimidation. In the early 1980s, after the party sent hired workers sporting armbands reading “National Ballot Security Task Force” into Black and Latino precincts in New Jersey to challenge voters’ eligibility, it operated under an increasingly strict federal consent decree that eventually barred it from conducting or advising on any sort of “ballot security” activities — even by unpaid volunteers.

Richard L. Hasen, an election-law expert at the University of California, Irvine, said that because of the president’s influence, the Republican National Committee was at risk of being associated with the same kind of behavior that led to the consent decree. He noted that the 2017 federal court ruling lifting the consent decree stated in a footnote that Mr. Trump had clearly encouraged voter suppression during the 2016 presidential campaign, but that his behavior could not be tied to the national party.

Now, however, he effectively controls the party.

“While I was worried about Trump norm-breaking in 2016, it is far worse for a sitting president to be undermining the integrity of the election,” Dr. Hasen said. “Whether Trump means the things he says or not, he’s convincing his most ardent supporters that the only way he loses is if the Democrats cheat.”

He added, “That’s profoundly destabilizing and scary.”

 

 

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Updawg

Updawg 2378

Posted
Posted

They need to stay away until 9/1 to force no lege pay. That will cause all kinds of problems for everyone and Abbott won’t look good for vetoing it.

Abbott threw a grenade into the room. Dems pulled the pin. Let’s see if they can work together to stop it from exploding

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RDCanecutter

RDCanecutter 26853

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Chooky said:

The silliest, most embarrassing behavior taking place and this clown governor will likely be rewarded for it. It's a vague form of masochism to remain informed. 

Smart entity that does stupid things to get votes from yokels. The last time it took human form, it called itself "George Wallace."

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